FHBC Sermon Notes

What makes us distinct? That is what we are so often told in the world we need to be. We are "special" individuals. We show ourselves are important by our "individual" distinctiveness. Yet, the church has a very different distinctiveness. We are set apart, but that "we" in the church, the people of God. We have not set ourselves apart, but have been set apart by an almighty creator, by God. 

In this letter, Paul addresses the church, his brothers and sisters, and speaks of this holy call, this setting apart. In the beginning of the letter he defines genuine faith, tells us that it bind us together, that it invites trials and persecutions in Jesus, yet he is sufficient. At the end of that chapter though he praises his friends for their faith, but also shows that still are things that are lacking. Instead as one who is enduring the fire, he shows the way through. He addresses what it truly means and takes to be set apart.

**The Main Point:

The primary distinction between the church and the world is our singular. passionate, devoted pursuit to please God. (4:1-2)**

This point is not just the center point of this passage, but arguably the main point of the bible itself as regards the people of God, the church. If you are familiar with the Westminster Catechism, in answer to the question, "What is chief end of man?" it answers this.

>"Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever."

Our world today would give us a different idiom, 

>"To be true (glorify) ourselves, and to love ourselves forever."

This is what ultimately sets us apart. Truly, do we find our pleasure in God, or in other things first? What does it mean to please God anyway? Paul in this passage, addresses this answer. We can in fact consume ourselves with this question to the point of legalistic fervor.  While God does reach into every part of our lives, it 

**Three Ways of Pleasing God:**

1. We please God by living holy lives. (4:3-8)

We in this must answer the question, "What does it mean to be holy." First we must remember, that God is holy.  So, in the simplest of ways, to be holy is to be with holy, to seek and allow ourselves to be conformed into the image of God's character. In one way God has sanctified us, yet in another, we no that we are still works in progress. God is continuing to do the work of sanctification in us.

>For this is the will of God, your sanctification:

But this is not a task we must do alone. God has given us his very spirit, his Holy Spirit, as our comforter and conformer.  

>For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. 8 Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

There are so many ways this works itself out.  Appropriate to our world, it appears that Thessalonians were having struggles with something we also have trouble with, sexual immorality(v.3-8). They were not to simply conform to the worlds understanding of sex, but to Gods. In this way, living, "not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God",

we in the power of the power of the Holy Spirit, are set apart for him, as his own bride.

2. We please God by loving one another. (4:9-10)

>Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another

God takes this beyond just hospitality. Paul reminds the Thessalonians that we have been taught this by Jesus himself. That to love one another, it to imitate the love Jesus showed for us, to give our very lives for each other. He praises his friends for how well they are doing this. But there is a warning as well. This is a radical love that the outside will see, but for that to be see, it must endure. That they, and ourselves, must continue with this diligently.

3. We please God by laboring honestly and wholeheartedly. (4:11-12)

This diligence goes into all things that please God. As we see later in the letter, there was a bit of a problem in the Thessalonians, of stopping work while they waited for Jesus to return. But this is not the command we have been given. In fact we are told to continue working.

>"… to work with your hands, as we instructed you."

Why we may ask? Because this is part of our witness. We are living, and working this way is the view that our bosses, our fellow employees, and all those that do not know Jesus see in us. For our witness to be true, our work must also be true.  

Let us think of our jobs, not as working for "the man", but as working for Jesus. If we truly work in this way, the world will see.

This applies to us in all points in life. Even once retired, we do not retire from being servants of God. As we get weaker and weaker, able to do physically less and less, we still live in the power of the Spirit. We can pray, we can encourage, we can endure to the end in the way that only one that is full of the Holy Spirit can do. 

**Let us encourage one another in this way, to live set apart, to find our pleasure in God, and to endure to the end of our lives, awaiting the coming of our Savior, so that the world itself may witness and see the glory of God. Amen. **